


A Future Dark and Red

by FenHarelsPride (Andauril)



Series: Siryn Lavellan [4]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Drama, F/M, Pre-Relationship, Red Lyrium, Time Travel, because dark future, sort off
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-09
Updated: 2015-04-09
Packaged: 2018-03-22 01:19:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3709543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Andauril/pseuds/FenHarelsPride
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This was all his fault. His pride, once more his greatest vice, had allowed this to happen. Without him, the sky would be whole and the woman whose spirit shined so brightly still alive. This was all his doing. He had wrought this world more wrong and corrupted than the one he had woken up to.</p><p>He ruined everything he touched.</p><p>***</p><p>Magister Gereon Alexius has killed Siryn Lavellan. Alone in captivity, with the corruption of the Red Lyrium creeping underneath his skin, Solas struggles with his guilt and his feelings for the Dalish woman - even moreso when she suddenly returns to him ...</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Future Dark and Red

The hidden agents smuggled into Redcliffe Castle were efficient, Solas had to admit. The moment Alexius ordered all of them to be killed, they appeared silently behind the Venatori soldiers, removing them from life with cold-hearted precision as drawn blades cut through throats.

“Your men are dead, Alexius!” Lavellan pointed out. “This is your last change: Surrender!”

“Never!” Alexius stepped forwards, eyes narrowed to slits. Through grinded teeth, he hissed: “You … are a mistake! You should never have existed!”

He drew an amulet of his sleeves – in the most literal of all senses –, an amulet pulsing and glowing with magic even unbeknownst to Solas himself. It hovered above his palm, flashing green in the same moment Dorian Pavus cried “No!” and cast a spell to deflect whatever magic Alexius sought to summon …

The flashing green light blinded Solas for only a moment, but as his vision returned to him, Lavellan as well as Dorian Pavus were gone. There was no sign of them left in the audience hall, only Alexius with his amulet still hovering in the air.

“What happened?” Cassandra spoke the question which already had formed in Solas’ mind. “Is she … are they …? No!”

The seeker draw her sword, darting forwards while she removed her shield from her back, her face distorted by anger and desperation. It was obvious that she meant to kill the man who just had …

He’d known it the moment it happened, but only now the realization dawned on him fully. Alexius had erased Siryn Lavellan – along with Dorian Pavus – from existence. Maybe he had intended to remove her entirely from the fabric of time, but at least this attempt at failed ... he would not remember her otherwise.

Solas hurried to cloak Cassandra in a barrier, but her angered approach was stopped immediately when Alexius lifted his hand and a rune appeared at her feet, covering her with ice, freezing her. The _shemlen_ woman clenched her jaws in anger.

“Do you even know what you have done?” Solas hissed at Alexius. Without Lavellan and the mark upon her hand, with entire world was doomed to be swallow slowly but inevitable by the Breach. The Fade and this realm would merge once more, but in a way so perverted that he did not even dare to think about what it would mean.

Alexius had, through his ignorance and lust for power and his own desperation to save a life already lost, sealed the fate of both the Fade and the waking world!

“I saved my son”, said Alexius. “It is too late now for both of you. The Elder One is coming.”

Solas knew, even before Alexius had finished speaking, who was approaching them right in this moment. Every fibre of his being reacted to the nearing of what had once been his and his alone, of what he’d crafted with care himself to amplify his own powers in a life and a world so dissimilar from this one. The orb …

He knew who this so-called _Elder One_ was.

Gripping his staff closer, he whirled around in the very same moment the hall’s doors were thrown open. Accompanied from an espalier of Venatori warriors and mages he saw the disfigured, emaciated figure striding towards them, and above one of his gaunt, clawed hands, hovered …

Solas felt how his whole face turned pale.

The Elder One not only carried his foci, he _wielded_ it.

_You fool, Dread Wolf, you ignorant fool!_

He readied himself to fight, called upon what was left of his connection to the Fade. The same moment, Cassandra broke free of the ice which had held her. She threw herself into battle, cutting down two Venatori until her angered approached was blocked and she was forced to cross blades and parry the counter attacks of their enemies.

Solas, summoning a barrier to protect the seeker as well as him, called down ice upon them. He frosted two Venatori whose bodies shattered to bloodied pieces as Cassandra cut them down. Another one of them he trapped within an ice glyph, all the while circling and moving to avoid being hit by their archers. He countered the attack of a Venatori mage, dispelling his magic until he could strike Cassandra down.

For the duraciy of a heartbeat, it almost looked like they could win this battle, survive and escape, but Solas knew it better. He was far too old to be fooled by their immediate success. His only hope to live through this was if he somehow came to reach his orb …

The odds were against them.

He heard Cassandra’s cry as the barrier protecting her collapsed. She held her ground, but was quickly surrounded by Venatori fighters. Overwhelmed as she was, she could do little to defend herself from the blow that struck her down.

Solas fade-stepped forward, trying in an – as he knew – ill-considered attempt to reach his orb, and for a moment – the blink of an eye – he almost could touch it …

Then something crushed against the back of his head and his whole world turned black, as the ground opened to swallow him whole.

 

He was pacing back and forth inside his cell, restlessly, as if movement could heal or at least decelerate the corruption creeping underneath his skin. The itching and scratching was ever present, and it grew stronger with every passing day.

Solas knew, it was only a matter of time until the Lyrium would break its way through the surface of his skin. He was living on borrowed time, and every day was pure torture.

Long lost was to him the passing of time. He could not tell how long he had been here, captured, slowly dying from the corruption of the Red Lyrium. It could have been days, or years – it mattered only little.

He could feel the energy of the Fade surrounding him, but its song was twisted, turned, corrupted. During his first days in captivity, he had sought refuge within his dreams, after he’d learned that escape was fruitless. Then they had started to feed him the Lyrium.

At first, he had sought to resist. At first, it had seemed as if attempts had been successful, but one could only resist so much force until the corruption would gain a hold within them. He had managed to slow down the corruption for a time, but the growing Lyrium had soon consumed his reserves.

Through his dreams and his friends, Wisdom the first among them, he had learned of what had happened during his absence. He had learned of a demon army who’d conquered the entire South of Thedas, commanded by the one the Venatori called _the Elder One._ He had learned that an assassin had murdered Empress Celene, and that the South quickly had fallen to the reign of a self-proclaimed god who now ruled unchallenged.

With horror, he had witnessed how his friends turned, one after another, twisted into something dark as they slowly started to lose their minds. The once comforting Hope became Despair, and his Courage faded to Rage. Wisdom lost its mind and was consumed by hubris until it became Pride. One after another, they suffered the same fate as the many spirits torn through the rifts, and he did not need their reports to know what had become of the Fade.

This was all his fault. His pride, once more his greatest vice, had allowed this to happen. Without him, the sky would be whole and the woman whose spirit shined so brightly still alive. This was all his doing. He had wrought this world more wrong and corrupted than the one he had woken up to.

He ruined everything he touched.

Days upon days in captivity, isolation, alone with his thoughts, his guilt and the corruption that slowly killed him had lead him to the realization that his attachment to Siryn Lavellan had returned to him something he long had thought lost. He missed her – her smile, her curious questions, the way she compressed her lips when she was displeased with something, the sound of her voice and of her laughter.

What a cruel irony that he only had learned of what she meant to him when he realized that she was gone forever.

Turning away from the bars, he paced to the back of his cell, forcing his aching feet to keep moving even though pain shot through his muscles with every step. The Lyrium had infested his whole body, and he did not know how much time he had left.

Death had never been something he truly had thought about. Even though he feared the end of his lonely path more than everything else, he also had known his fear was irrational. But now, with the Red Lyrium slowly growing inside him, dying seemed inevitable. He wondered what would happen to him afterwards.

He feared what would happen to him afterwards …

Steps behind him made him stop. His whole aching body tensed and he called upon his magic without a second thought, taking hold of it until the energy pressed tightly against the ripped shreds of the Veil. He might be dying, but he would not let them harvest the Lyrium off his body without killing as much of them as he could. Diminished and doomed to death he might be, but the Dread Wolf would not surrender without a fight.

“Creators!” breathed a familiar voice, not heard since millennia, behind him.

No. Impossible. He turned around, hands still clenched into tight fists, to face and kill this foul vision of the twisted Fade …

“Solas!” she said, wrapping her hands around the bars of the cell’s door. “Sweet Sylaise, what have they done to you?”

At her left palm flared the Anchor, only for a moment, and she distorted her face in sudden pain, but did not turn her gaze from him.

Solas noticed the Tevinter mage, Dorian, behind her. There would have been no reason for _him_ to show up in a vision …

“You’re alive?” he whispered, his voice hoarse from disuse and filled with a strange tingling that could only originate from the Lyrium infesting his throat. “We saw you die!”

“The spell Alexius used displaced us in time”, answered Dorian Pavus for her. “We just got here, so to speak.”

Time travel. Solas had not believed it possible, as it was a feat attempted multiple times in the past but never accomplished. But he had witnessed the effects of time altering magic before, when the Breach still had been stable, on their way to Redcliffe Village.

He realized now that Alexius attempt to erase Siryn Lavellan from existence had not killed her, as he first had thought, but merely sent her forward in time. For her, it would have been mere minutes. For him, instead …

It was too late. The corruption was too far advanced to ever be reversed. He would die – he long had accepted it – but there still might be a way … If Siryn and Pavus truly had been displaced in time …

“Can you reverse the process? You could return and obviate the events of the last year. It may not be too late …” If this timeline never came into existence, he would never have been died in the first place. Countless lives could be saved, his mistake ultimately corrected …

“Solas …” Siryn’s face was etched with worry, her eyes wide at his sight, and he knew what she must seeing … a broken man, barely holding himself upright, his despair poorly hidden. “You look terrible … Is there anything I can do?”

“I am dying, but no matter.” He noticed her flinch at his words. Her worry for him was genuine. “If you can undo this, they can all be saved.”

She was still as beautiful as he had last seen her, looked no different from the woman who’d disappeared in the throne hall. He wanted desperately to hold her, to kiss her, to taste her lips and her tongue, her delicious scent, and never let go off her again, but he restrained himself. It would only distract her if he made his feelings known – and he did not dare touch her for the fear to infect her with the Lyrium growing inside him.

“But you know nothing of this world”, he continued, forcing his disused cracking voice to speak, even though every single word hurt in his throat. He had to ready her, if she was to survive this and return. If she could prevent the death of the empress and the invasion, the Elder One would fail in his attempts to conquer and rule over this world. Knowledge was power. “It is far worse than you understand. Alexius served a master, the Elder One. He reins now, unchallenged. His minions assassinated Empress Celene and used the chaos to invade the South. This Elder One commands an army of demons. After you stop Alexius, you must be prepared.”

“You’re just brimming with good news, aren’t you?” Her sarcastic response only barely hid the terror lingering in her eyes and the worry in her voice. It was a poor attempt to keep herself from faltering and falling to despair.

“If you return to your present, you might find it helpful to know what the Elder One plans.” There was no comfort he could offer her, only knowledge. Sympathetic worlds would not help her prevent this perverted world. He needed her ready. Solas could not bear the thought of losing her a second time due to his own, terrible mistakes. “This world is an abomination. It must never come to pass.”

He stepped out of his cell. “If I can offer you any help … My life is yours.” _Vhenan._

She closed her eyes and when she opened them to look at him, he heard her whisper, “ _Ir abelas_ , Solas. I’ll save you.”

 

Fighting had never been so exhausting. The scratching underneath his skin was unnerving at best, every breath, every step, every spell a challenge instead of naturalness. By the end of the fight, he was heavily breathing, leaning against the staff he’d recovered from a dead Venatori mage, lest his legs would no longer support him.

Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed that Cassandra was no better off, panting from the fight, her fingers grasped tightly around the grip of her sword. Her face was pale and drenched in sweat as she gasped desperately for air.

Leliana, whom they had freed from the torture chamber mere minutes ago, her hood downcast to hide her disfigured features, fared little better than two of them. Solas figured that she, while not infected with the corruption of the Red Lyrium, struggled with a weakness of her own.

Siryn Lavellan circled one of the corpses lying on the ground, stepping with rushed steps closer to him, her face even paler than usual. Her brow was furrowed with anguish and worry.

“Are the three of you alright?” she asked, her gaze lingering on his face a little longer than on those of the two _shemlen_ women.

Solas sucked in a deep, aching breath, summoning a breeze of healing magic to energize his body. At least his hold onto the Fade had not been considerably lessened during the past year in captivity. To loose even more of his power would have been inconvenient, to say the least … But it was only his body that was slowly betraying him.

“I’m alright, Herold”, Cassandra answered through heavy breathes. “We should hurry now …”

“I agree with the seeker. Alexius must be somewhere inside this castle. If you are to escape this future, we must find him.”

Siryn came nearer. “I know. Is there truly nothing I can do? You … don’t look well.” She raised her hand, as if to touch him, but he stepped back, shaking his head decidedly.

“Do not touch me, Siryn. Any contact with me might only contaminate you with the corruption. You are far too important to fall victim to the infection of Red Lyrium.”

Siryn’s eyes widened at the mentioning of her name, and Solas realized in that moment that he’d never called her by it before. He’d called her by her clan’s name – Lavellan – and occasionally, he’d called her _Herold_ (although always in a mocking fashion, as she was certainly no Herold of a dead woman burned on a pyre), but never before he’d called her by her first name.

Maybe he had betrayed too much of his feelings.

“You’re right.” Siryn forced a smile upon her lips, yet it looked strained and did not reach her eyes. “We should move on.”

They made their way through the castle, occasionally slowing down when Cassandra, Leliana or him needed rest after a fight. As soon as they reached the courtyard, Solas heard Siryn gasped in shock.

Even though he knew what was awaiting them outside, he still was not quite prepared for the sight. The Breach was literally everywhere, Fade and physical world merged together in some twisted perversion of once had been. Neither soon nor moon were anywhere to be seen, instead the green sky of the Fade loomed other them, coating everything in sickly light.

Siryn’s fair skin turned ashen, her reddish purple _vallaslin_ a sharp bloody color in the glooming poison green light, while her white-blonde hair nearly seemed tinted white … She looked as ill as himself, and on her left hand the Anchor flared to life.

She winced, grapping her staff tighter, and kept moving throught the courtyard towards a newly opened rift where the Veil was not completely ripped to shreds.

Demons throw themselves against them in battle, pushing through the rift, falling from the sky. Solas wondered, but only for a moment, how many of them had once been peaceful spirits turned and twisted against their true nature, losing themselves because of the Breach.

Solas froze two Rage demons, while a few steps from him, Leliana pulled the bowstring to send a greater shade to the ground, her arms slightly trembling from exhaustion. Cassandra parried the strokes of a Terror demon with her sword and shield, heavily breathing with every strike but refusing to waver and retreat.

Siryn summoned lightning, shocking two shades at once and impaling another with the blade of her staff. She moved more effortless, her breathing and steps steady … as did Dorian Pavus, Solas noted.

Raising her hand, she aimed the Anchor at the rift, trying to disrupt it for them to gain an advantage. An arc of green light sprang from her palm to the rift, connecting it with the mark …

Behind her, another terror demon appeared, emerging from the ground and striking her down with a heavy blow. She collapsed with a wince.

 _“Vhenan!”,_ Solas gasped in shock.

Before the terror could impale her with its sharp claws, he froze it, summoning the shadow of his own fist out of the Fade to crush it into pieces. He restrained himself from hurrying at her side – lest the slip of tongue had already betrayed him – and draped her in another barrier, sighing in relief as she rose from the ground, seemingly unharmed.

Without hesitation, Siryn aimed her mark at the rift again, and another couple of heartbeats later, the fight was over.

“What did you say? When the demon struck me down?” She turned around to face him.

“A mere slip of tongue. It was nothing of importance.”

“Maybe I misheard … Never mind.”

 

“Give me an hour to work out the spell he used, and I should be able to reopen the rift.”

“An hour? That’s impossible. You must go now!”

Solas agreed with her, silently. They had little time left. The Elder One could not be far, and if he reached Siryn, he would without a doubt kill her. He could not risk losing her again, not when so much was at stake. Solas could sense his looming presence approaching, even more when the ground started to tremble beneath his feet. Not far away, a dragon roared.

“The Elder One”, stated Leliana.

She turned to look at him, then to Cassandra who squared her shoulders and nodded with a grim expression.

“We’ll halt the outer door”, he said firmly. “When they get past us, it will be your turn.”

Siryn’s face paled, and she shook her head. “No! There must be another way … one that doesn’t include throwing your lives away! Please … Solas … don’t …”

“I am already dead, Siryn.” If he could only tell her what he felt. If he could only touch her, one last time, before he faced inevitable death. If she succeeded, he would life and this world would never have happened … but if she failed … He would never get this opportunity again. But if he told her now, it would only distract her. He could not effort her losing her focus on what was truly important.

“He’s right, Herold”, said Leliana. “The only way we life is if this day never comes.”

Solas gripped his staff closer and headed towards the door. The moment he reached the door step, he hesitated, turned around one last time to face her. Their eyes locked, and she shook her head, silently pleading him not to die.

 _“Ir abelas, vhenan”_ , he whispered, maybe loud enough for her to hear him – it mattered no longer. _“Ar lath ma.”_

The door shut close in front of him, and Solas turned around to face his death with dignity. The Dread Wolf would not fall without a fight.

~ ~ ~

Siryn stared at the door. Mere moments ago, Solas had disappeared behind it – she wondered what he’d said to her before the portal had shut close – and now she could hear the noise of battle on the other side.

The screaming, the clash of swords, hissing of demons, pained moans and the plinking of something which might be ice …

_Creators, please, I beg you! All of you! Keep them save. Protect them._

Behind her, Dorian worked tirelessly on the spell which would bring them back to their time, but she only barely paid him any attention. Her gaze was still fixated on the door.

She prayed to Elgar’nan to strike the demons done with his rightful vengeance. She prayed to Mythal to protect them. She prayed to Andruil to give them strength, to Sylaise to burn them all, to Dirthamen to bring her friends the edge of knowledge in battle, to Falon’Din to spare their lives and take those of their enemys instead. She prayed to Ghilan’nain to show them the safest path. And she prayed to Fen’Harel to take them all so that her friends were safe.

She could not bear the thought of them dying for you.

_Protect them, I beg you, I beg you, please, keep them save._

The door burst upon, and behind it … she could see Cassandras limb form crushing to the floor, head half-ripped off her shoulders, and gulped. The right hand of the Divine was dead, there was no way she could have survived this … Siryn felt hollow …

She cried the moment the terror demon entered and tossed another limb body at the side. The broken form of Solas lay still, lifeless, eyes wide open but without focus … The demon had thrown him away as if he was just a puppet it no longer wanted to play with …

She whimpered, let out a desperate cry. Her eyes burnt and her cheeks went wet, and she realized with shock that she was crying, that it was tears that streamed down her face.

Creators, why did have to be him? Why did it hurt so much? Why felt her heart like it had suddenly been ripped into shreds? She wanted to rush at his side, to shake him until he woke, until he stood up … She wanted to burn the one’s who’d killed him, to rip them apart with her bare hands and make them suffer for what they’d done.

Her hands gripped her staff tighter, and she hurried forwards, but there was suddenly a hand at her arm holding her back.

“You move, and we all die!”

She tried to break free, but he didn’t let her go.

“I know this is ugly, but you have to stay put!” barked Dorian at her face. “You can’t help them now!”

“I’ve promised him to save him …”

“And you will! But we must return to our time first to do so.”

Siryn wanted to hit him. Could he not see that he was dead? Even if they made it back to the present … This was all real. Solas was gone. No breath moved his chest, his eyes stared lifeless, his form was limb and broken. Dead. Gone.

She hadn’t expect it to hurt so much. But to know he was gone, dead, that she could never tell him how sorry she was that this had happened to him, that she could never tell him … how much he’d come to mean to her …

Only barely she noticed that Leliana had fallen, that the demons were now approaching them …

“The rift is open!” yelled Dorian.

He gripped her wrist and turned around, darting forwards through the whirling time rift and dragged her with him. Her world dissolved for moments and she was hurled around, until her feet suddenly meet the ground again.

She looked at Alexius, who stared back in confusion as his amulet sank back into his fist.

She’d returned.

 

 


End file.
